In the crypto sector, companies spend a lot of money to promote their projects and platforms. Crypto influencers and KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) are often used to expand the audience and reach new targeted users. However, even if they sometimes bring a good ROI (Return on Investment), investing thousands of dollars in crypto influencers is risky, and there is a high possibility of being trapped in scams and misleading promotions. PlasBit has analyzed this topic deeply, creating a long crypto influencer price list, in which the cost of crypto influencers on X (formerly Twitter) varies in a range from $160 for @0xDefiLeo, who has 26K followers and 2K average views, to $2,200 per post for @MartiniGuyYT who has 583K followers and 15K average views. The price depends on the followers, the average engagement rate (likes, retweets, comments), and the reputation of each KOL.
Before analyzing this topic in detail, we underscore the fact that crypto influencers and KOLs can be useful in the short term, but you must implement other marketing strategies that are more effective and organic to grow in the long term, such as SEO, content marketing, word-of-mouth, partnerships, and more.
The Role of Crypto Influencers and KOLs in Web3 Marketing
Among various marketing strategies, crypto influencers and KOLs could be considered one of the most effective in the short term since your project can gain traction and reach a wide audience. However, not all the KOLs bring good results, and most of them are likely scammers. Finding the right crypto influencers and KOLs can be challenging, but in this analysis, we’ll help you make conscious decisions and avoid investing money in scam influencers.
Crypto Influencers and KOLs as trendsetters
Crypto influencers and KOLs gained their reputation by being seasoned traders, industry experts, or early crypto adopters and often have the ability to set trends and drive discussions in crypto communities. In fact, often, a single tweet from KOLs can boost the relevance and awareness of crypto projects and token sales, driving growth and setting new trends. For example, the “best” KOL could be considered Elon Musk: With a single tweet, he can boost the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Dogecoin. His influence matters, and investors literally follow his interests by investing in projects related to and sponsored by him. If a relevant KOL endorses or criticizes a crypto project, it can make a difference, positive or negative.
The psychology behind trust in KOLs and crypto influencers
Before analyzing in detail how collaborations with crypto influencers and KOLs work, let’s understand why people trust these influencers so much. The answer lies in psychological factors and perceived expertise: Social proofs are crucial, and trust is built through personal connections, relevance, and perceived authenticity of KOLs and influencers. People want to be part of communities and groups with similar interests, and crypto KOLs are leaders in Web3 communities, creating a sense of belonging among their followers. This sense of community, combined with the perceived expertise and trading skills of KOLs, make their endorsement persuasive and create FOMO since people see them as relevant authorities in the crypto space. A high number of followers, likes, retweets, and comments further amplify the positive perception of KOLs: These social proofs contribute to making them a trusted guide for people, and KOLs can consequently create new trends and make some crypto project virals. People need psychological connections and guidance, and KOLs are the key element that satisfies people’s needs by creating close-knit communities of traders and crypto enthusiasts.
How to recognize a real crypto KOL
If your X profile has more than 50,000 followers, and your tweets receive more than 10,000 views on average, you can likely be considered a crypto KOL, meaning that you can basically influence people’s perceptions and investing choices. Even if it sounds great, you must understand that your tweets are basically perceived as financial advice, and it brings responsibilities. KOLs must remain authentic, real, honest, and trustworthy because they can lose their relevance very quickly if they endorse scams or misleading crypto projects. In summary, being a KOL or crypto influencer is a responsibility, and KOLs influence people’s perceptions and investing choices relatively easily.
Crypto Influencer Price List: A Detailed Overview of Some Famous KOLs
In our research, we gained precious insights about the rates of the most famous influencers, and we report it here to make it easier for projects to evaluate the effectiveness and prices of KOLs. Here is a crypto influencer price list, updated to September 2024:
| Influencer | Followers | Average Views | Cost per Tweet |
|---|---|---|---|
| MartiniGuyYT | 583.4K | 15k | $2,200 |
| NDIDI_GRAM | 136K | 10K | $1,300 |
| TedPillows | 132K | 20K | $1,250 |
| cryptojack | 342K | 4K | $1,000 |
| bloomstarbms | 172K | 30K | $800 |
| AltCryptoGems | 432K | 20K | $600 |
| CryptoBusy | 141K | 2K | $500 |
| JamesParkerOG | 1.3M | 100K | $350 |
| justinwrites | 180K | 10K | $300 |
| eli5_defi | 25K | 2K | $300 |
| Mars_DeFi | 24K | 7K | $250 |
| defimedivh | 90K | 10K | $250 |
| zeuuss_01 | 8K | 3K | $200 |
| elcryptodoc | 51K | 4K | $200 |
| GoodValueCrypto | 78K | 8K | $200 |
| moonking___ | 47K | 8K | $200 |
| UdyHighs | 16K | 2K | $170 |
| 0xDefiLeo | 26K | 2K | $160 |
As you can see from this list, prices vary consistently, and choosing the best KOLs is not easy, especially because bots and fake engagement are extremely common, and it’s difficult to evaluate the potential positive effect of each crypto influencer. You must evaluate the best ratio of followers-views/costs and carefully check if the engagement is real or fake. It’s not an easy mission, and often, crypto projects ask KOL marketing agencies to take care of this task since they already have established relationships with KOLs and can handle them easily. However, marketing agencies require an upfront payment and usually also include a relevant percentage of the overall budget, speculating on the payment.
Factors to consider when selecting KOLs for your project
Various factors contribute to the cost of each KOL, and you should understand how they could affect the overall performance of the crypto influencer campaign.
Audience size and demographics
The first factor to consider is the audience size. Of course, KOLs and crypto influencers with large audiences require higher payments. On the contrary, influencers with smaller audiences require less expensive payments, but they are also less effective. However, you must also consider the geographic location and demographics of their audiences. Influencers that have followers mainly based in low-income countries are less valuable than influencers with audiences in high-income countries, such as the US, European countries, or Middle Eastern countries. In fact, if your project aims to gain users from Europe, an influencer based in India, for example, could be ineffective and could bring poor results. Demographics is another important factor as well: If the audience of the KOL is aged 18-24, it could be less valuable than an influencer with an audience of 24-50 age people. Older people often have more budget to invest at their disposal, and that makes them more valuable than younger audiences.
Engagement rate
Followers, likes, retweets, and comments are important factors to bear in mind. The higher the engagement rate, the higher the valuation of the KOL because high engagement means that there is an active and interested audience, which can be translated into higher conversion rates and ROI. However, a lot of aspiring KOLs and crypto influencers use paid services to boost their engagement rate and followers, altering the perception of users. Even if it’s a common practice, we highly recommend avoiding investing in KOLs that use fake engagement to boost their posts since it means they don’t have a real and engaged community that supports and follows their moves. You must prioritize KOLs that use honest, real communication and have an engaged and trustworthy community. Use critical thinking and analysis tools to check the followers of the KOL before making agreements: In this way, you can avoid investing in KOLs with fake engagement that likely will not bring good results or an effective ROI.
Platform
Before selecting the KOLs and crypto influencers for your project, think and decide which platform you want to prioritize. Most crypto projects focus on X, so, for them, onboarding KOLs on Instagram could be a waste of money. Some other projects, on the contrary, want to prioritize communication on YouTube and must prioritize Youtubers with a relevant audience and aligned interests. When deciding which platform you want to prioritize, bear in mind that YouTubers could ask for higher fees since the time and effort required to create video content are higher. X influencers may charge lower fees since a retweet requires only two clicks, for example. Before making final agreements, decide which platform you want to prioritize to be aligned with your crypto project’s goals and values.
Comparing costs across different platforms
Each platform has different price dynamics. Let’s analyze the most common ones together.
X/Twitter
X, formerly known as Twitter, is probably the most used platform to promote crypto projects.
But why is X the most common platform for Web3 companies? X is the main platform used to promote crypto projects because its audience comprises the largest user base interested in cryptocurrencies, and it allows the creation of large communities of crypto enthusiasts that share similar interests and valuable information. News is spread quickly, and the algorithms make content viral through retweets and quotes, reaching wide audiences of interested users. Additionally, it doesn’t allow only text content but also voice discussions through AMAs (Ask Me Anything) sessions and Twitter spaces. Giveaways and contests further amplify the voice of crypto projects, allowing them to give rewards to users who interact with their posts. That’s not all, because crypto experts also share interesting and in-depth analyses about the crypto market and trading strategies, providing valuable information to crypto enthusiasts and traders. Also, the hashtags contribute to making the post viral and reach a wider audience, basically for free. All these factors make X the favorite choice for crypto projects and enthusiasts. KOL promotion’s costs on X can vary depending on the factors previously analyzed, but we can say that, on average, the prices range from $200 (for the less relevant KOLs) to $2,500 per tweet. The cost might sound crazy, and it probably is, especially considering that a single post could require less than 10 minutes. But, if one tweet from a relevant KOL brings a lot of users and money to the project, it means that it is worth the price and has a good effect on the crypto project.
YouTube
YouTube is mainly suited for detailed analysis, educational content, and tutorials, and it’s useful for creating awareness for your crypto projects. Prices of Youtubers are higher since creating a video requires more effort compared to a simple post on X. Prices start from $500 per video and can reach up to $20,000 per video. Also on this platform, some misleading Youtubers use paid services to boost views, likes, and comments. Consequently, before agreeing and paying Youtbers, you must analyze their content and identify the most common red flags linked to a fake engagement, such as AI-generated comments, a fixed amount of views, suspicious views/like/comment ratios, and more.
TikTok
TikTok is seeing a relevant surge of crypto content, and it’s more suited to attract young investors with no significant experience in cryptocurrencies. TikTok influencers may charge from $300 to $5,000 per post, and if you’re lucky the video could become viral and bring you a good ROI. However, also in this case, you must carefully verify that the interactions are real, and that the influencer’s values are aligned with the mission and vision of your crypto projects. It’s important to avoid influencers with a negative reputation (influencers that have been involved in promoting scam crypto projects) because it could bring a negative effect and perception about your crypto project.
Even if Instagram is not the preferred platform for crypto content, it can be useful to promote NFT projects since the visual content can create hype and interest around your NFT collection. However, we don’t recommend promoting token sales on this platform, because the target of Instagram could be not aligned with your aimed audience and values. Costs are similar to TikTok, ranging from $300 to $5,000. However, relevant KOLs with substantial followers may ask for higher payments. In short, we can say that Instagram is more suited for NFT projects rather than crypto token projects.
Are KOLs and Crypto Influencers worth it?
It’s difficult to answer this question, however, we can say that investing in KOLs and crypto influencers can pay off in the short-term only if the price is reasonable and if they and their audiences are aligned with the project’s values and mission. There are both pros and cons of using KOLs and crypto influencers to promote your crypto projects, and we’ll analyze them deeply in the following sections.
Pros of KOLs and crypto influencer marketing
Build credibility and awareness
The first advantage of using KOLs and influencers to promote your crypto project is the credibility and awareness they can bring to your project. They can help you engage with new and large audiences, increasing visibility and trust. Their endorsement, in fact, can help undecided investors to validate the legitimacy of your project, consequently contributing to a new inflow of investors in your company.
Boost engagement and amplify the message
Another important pro is the boosted engagement your project will receive. In crypto (and in marketing, in general), appearance matters, and seeing a high engagement rate in your X profile can create a ripple effect that increases the positive perception of users. By seeing strong social proof, such as significant amounts of likes, retweets, comments, and followers, new investors could be attracted by the hype and FOMO, consequently joining your project with a higher probability.
Highly-targeted audience
Crypto KOLs and influencers focus their profile and content on Web3 topics, and consequently, their audience is highly targeted and perfect to suit your project’s mission, vision, and values. For example, instead of promoting with not-targeted ads across social media platforms, using crypto KOLs and influencers ensures that your content will reach the perfect target you’re aiming for, likely increasing the conversion rate and decreasing the cost per acquisition.
Rapid market penetration in the short-term
Even if investing in KOLs and influencers has high costs, it ensures you reach the targeted audience quickly. This means that you can rapidly scale up your project and achieve good results in a short timeframe. However, other strategies (such as SEO, content marketing, and word-of-mouth) could bring good results at a lower cost and in a sustainable way, but they require more time. If your goal is to reach a large audience in a short timeframe, then KOLs and influencers might be the right solution for you, even if they come at a higher cost compared to long-term strategies.
Cons of KOLs and crypto influencer marketing
Even if there are various benefits in using KOLs and influencers to promote your crypto project, you must bear in mind that there are also various potential cons.
Fake followers and engagement
The biggest risk is paying KOLs and influencers that use paid services to boost followers and engagement on their profiles. It’s not easy to recognize KOLs that implement this misleading strategy, but you can look for the most common red flags to try to understand if the interactions are real or fake, such as sudden spikes in follower count, low engagement rate compared to follower count, generic or repetitive comments, unusual patterns in engagement, and weird follower-to-engagement ratios. By carefully analyzing the possible red flags, you can be able to identify KOLs that use fake engagement and avoid them at all costs: They are not worth the investment because their audience is basically fake.
Overvaluation
Another important factor you might consider before agreeing with KOLs and influencers is the price/value ratio. Some influencers ask for thousands of dollars per tweet, but they have low engagement and cannot provide you with a good ROI. Analyzing the quality and value proposition of each KOL and influencer requires time, but it can help you avoid wasting money on influencers whose costs outweigh the actual benefits. Before agreeing with individual KOLs, remember to analyze the quality of their engagement and audiences, and consider that it’s possible that a single post cannot bring the aimed results: Repetition is crucial in marketing, and you need a structured campaign to drive consistent results, not only a single occasional tweet.
Final Considerations about Crypto Influencer and KOL Marketing
Now, you’re well equipped to DYOR (Do your own research) and evaluate if it’s worth it to pay for KOLs and influencers to promote your crypto project. However, at PlasBit, we want to emphasize the fact that this kind of promotion is likely not sustainable in the long term, and even if it could bring good results in the short term, it is very expensive and risky. KOL rounds usually start with a minimum budget of $30,000, and in most cases, you have no assurance that this strategy will bring an effective ROI. If you decide to start investing in KOLs and crypto influencers, remember to carefully check the possible red flags in the crypto influencer price list, analyzing if the engagement is real, if the audience is aligned with your project’s values, and if the marketing agency is not speculating on their prices. Finally, we also recommend implementing more sustainable and organic strategies that could be more effective in the long term, such as SEO, content marketing, community building, and partnerships and collaborations with relevant projects. We hope this research will be useful in evaluating if it’s worth paying for KOLs and crypto influencers, and remember to analyze both the KOLs and the marketing agencies with critical thinking before closing agreements and paying for their services.
